


Supply and Demand

by AerinTalat



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt Spencer Reid, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapped, Kidnapped Spencer Reid, Original Character(s), Torture, tied
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27901171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AerinTalat/pseuds/AerinTalat
Summary: When Dr. Spencer Reid and Alex (Original Character) are kidnapped by a human trafficking ring that services sadists, the rest of the BAU team must race to save them before it is too late.Very loosely based on the season 6 finale Supply and Demand.Set at the end of season 6.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WIP   
> Comments are appreciated as are suggestions/requests!

"Hey baby girl!"

"Hey Morgan, I..."

"Hold up, no witty response?" Morgan interrupted.

"Look," Garcia said, her voice shaking "Have you seen Reid? He was supposed to meet me for coffee this morning, but he never showed and JJ hasn't seen him since last night and with the way he has been since Prentiss I..."

"Woah woah, slow down, have you talked to Hotch?"

"Well no..." But she was interrupted Morgan's ringtone.

"Speak of the devil," Morgan grinned, showing Garcia the caller ID, "I bet he and Reid were just up late getting a head start on the next case.

Hey Hotch, I..." his face froze as the voice on the other end of the line interrupted him. "yes sir...Garcia's here with me...yes sir...were on our way."

"What? What is it?"

"Hotch needs us in the briefing room. It's about the kid."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
"Hey! Wake up!"

The voice hit Reid like a spotlight through a dark fog. He struggled to sit up and open his eyes, but his limbs refused to obey and he was rewarded with nothing but darkness.

"Oh good," the voice spoke again, "I thought you might have been dead. hang on."

'definitely female,' Reid thought, 'probably late teens to early 20's.' Her voice sounded vaguely familiar, like a snippet of conversation caught from the room over.

The fog slowly receded from his mind, leaving him with a splitting headache. He could hear labored breathing and what sounded like the squeak of bed springs somewhere in front of him. Reid's wrists were tied behind him and there was some sort of dark cloth obscuring his vision. He was lying on something soft, possibly a mattress? Unable to see, his other senses were on high alert, trying to understand what had happened. The pounding of his own heartbeat rose to an almost deafening level as he forced his panic back down.

"Hello?" He called out

Some one grabbed Reid's upper arm, startling him and he lurched back.

"Hey, hey," the voice comforted, right next to him now, "It's ok, I'm not going to hurt you." Calloused hands pulled him upright and then removed his blindfold.

"There, see. Nothing to be afraid of."

Reid squinted against the sudden harsh light. Before him, a young woman with short brown hair dressed in blue jeans and a black tank top looked at him with concern. They were alone in a small grey room with no windows and only one door. Across the room was a small cot, like you would see at a summer camp, with a rope and bandana lying in a disheveled heap.

With a start, he realized where he recognized her from. She had been in the third row from the back at guest lecture he gave at a nearby collage a few months back. He remembered her staying afterward to discuss profiling sadism in an unsub and the role it played in hostage negotiation. A coincidence perhaps? Morgan wouldn't believe that. He would tell Reid not to be an idiot.

"Are you ok?" the young woman asked, interrupting his train of thought.

"I...I think so." Reid answered hesitantly

"My name's Alex." She said, reaching around to untie him.

"Spencer Reid." He cautiously replied, rubbing the circulation back into his wrists.

Reid watched her march over to the door and rattle the handle. She seemed innocent enough, but something was bothering him. After working with the BAU for six years, he had seen his fair share of kidnapping victims. Most victims later recounted extreme fear or panic during the first few hours of their abduction. He had even experienced it first hand when he was held hostage by Tobias Hankel. But Alex seemed almost calm, like how Hotchner or Morgan would react in his given situation. She must have had training. Perhaps an undercover agent? But why wouldn't she have said something? Surely she would have recognized him as a BAU agent from the lecture?

Giving the door a last frustrated kick, Alex sat down opposite Reid.

"So what now?" she asked

"I'm not sure." 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Thank you all for coming in on such short notice." Agent Hotchner began, "This is SSA Andi Swann, head of the Domestic Trafficking Task Force. I'll let her explain the situation."

"Thank you." She stood up and started passing out files to the other members of the team. "For the past three years I have been tracking a human trafficking ring targeting low risk college students across the continental U.S. As far as we can tell, they have anywhere from fifteen to twenty captives held in various locations. Part of their operation is on the ground, allowing high paying customers to torture the victims, however, the majority of their work is online with live streams of their captives available 24 hours a day to anyone willing to pay a fee."

"Ok, so it's a trafficking ring for sadists. What does any of this have to do with Reid?" Morgan interrupted.

"Six hours ago, a new stream was started." Swann continued, picking up the remote and starting a video on the projector. It showed a small room with two cots on each lay a figure, bound and blindfolded. One a well built young woman, her brown hair obscuring her face, the other an tall and lanky young man with dark wavy hair.

"Oh my god." Garcia gasped, instinctively reaching for JJ.

"As soon as our technical analyst identified him as one of yours, I contacted SSA Hotchner. We have yet to identify the female victim."

"Due to concerns about objectivity, we are not technically allowed to work the case, but Agent Swann has graciously allowed us to unofficially consult." Hotchner said, with a concerned glance towards his team.

'Dammit, kid,' Morgan thought, 'what have you gotten yourself into.'


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a little late, finals are kicking my ass.  
> and yes, I borrowed a bit from Good Will Hunting. It's a good movie!
> 
> Trigger warnings for this chapter: Self harm and abuse

"So far, this group has managed to leave no trace online or on the ground." Agent Hotchner continued, "Agent Swann has analysts working on the video streams, Garcia, I want you working on the most recent one. Pay attention to the background, to noises and things that are said, anything that might help us narrow down a location. See if you can identify the second victim as well.

Morgan, you'll view the older recordings and start working on a profile, JJ and I are going to coordinate with Swann's team and go over what they have so far. Any questions?" he hated the way he made it sounded like any other case, but this was the best way they could help Reid. "Allright, then let's bring him home."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You know the odds of the door breaking now as opposed to the twenty-six other times you have tried that aren't exactly great." Reid stated, laying back with his arm over his face.

"You know maybe if you helped instead of just sitting there." Alex snapped back.

"One extra person is not going to make much of a difference against a bolted iron door." he said sitting up on the cot, "If you keep doing that your just likely too...hurt yourself." Reid finished as Alex gasped, holding her right shoulder, blood seeping from between her fingers.

"Dammit!" She hissed, walking back to the cots and shaking out her arm. 

"Are you ok?"

"I'm fine." 

"Can I see?" he asked. 

"Sure." She shrugged, sliding over so there was room on the cot next to her, "It's no big deal though, really."

Reid reached over and gently moved her hand away from the gash. It pulsed red, about two inches long. A superficial cut, but he could already hear Prentiss' voice in his head from when she had insisted on teaching him first aid after he had tripped and cut himself on one of their first days in the field together. God he missed her. He would give anything to know she was out there looking for him instead of six feet below him.

"Hey doufus," Alex's voice interrupted his train of thought, "You ok? Your not going to pass out on me are you?"

"We need to wrap it," Reid automatically replied, "to stop the bleeding. Here..." and started unbuttoning his shirt.

"Hold up! What do you think you are doing?" she asked jumping back alarmed.

"It's alright," Reid said freezing and showing her his hands before cautiously continuing with removing his black button up to reveal a similarly colored undershirt, "I'm just going to use it as a bandage."

Alex seemed to settle down a bit as Reid tore the shirt into strips and wrapped her arm. He realized that what he has first mistaken for tricks of the dim light, were actually scars and burn marks running up and down her arms and across her shoulders.

As he tied the knot, Alex winced and looked up, her dark eyes meeting his for a brief moment. He looked away first.

"Huh," Alex mused, admiring Reid's handy work, "That's pretty darn good. Where'd you learn to do that?" 

"A friend from the BAU taught me. She said I was so accident-prone that if I didn't learn I'd be stuck in a wheelchair for most of my life." He laughed

"BAU?"

"Behavioral Analysis Unit," Reid explained, "It's a part of the FBI. We help identify and capture criminals using profiling and various other analysis techniques."

"Huh, cool. So your kinda like Jason Borne in that scene, where he rattles off the license plates and tells the girl he can tell the waiter is right-handed and the bartender works some other odd job or something?"

"Not exactly, but I do have an eidetic memory and an IQ of 187."

"So your like a genius or something. Could you profile me?"

"That's not exactly how it works, plus, shouldn't we be looking for a way out anyways?"

"I mean, you said it yourself, that door is pretty damn solid." Alex laughed, "So come on, Spence, who am I?" she asked, putting on a comically inquisitive face.

"I...allright. From your age range and the fact that you were in one of my lectures, I would initially say a college student, but the callouses on your hands and your build suggests a life of manual labor, which is highly unlikely among female college students, so you most likely grew up in a lower income area with an above average intelligence. Because of this, you likely would have gotten a scholarship if given the opportunity, but something, likely an abusive familial relationship, prevented you from focusing on your studies. This led you to become frustrated, but instead of lashing out, you turned inward, self harming until you were able to leave three or four years ago." 

Throughout his exposition, Alex had started to turn inwards, crossing her arms across her stomach as if attempting to hide the scars whose story he had read like a library book.

"How did you guess the last bit?" She asked quietly.

"About the self harm? The scarring, there are repetitive inward slanting cuts on both arms, but they are most common on the left, the non dominant, arm. The larger, inconsistent scars are most likely from abuse, but these are too repetitive and precise."

"ah" she nodded, half whispering to herself.

"I'm sorry," Reid apologized awkwardly as he consciously registered what he had just blurted out, "I didn't mean to overstep."

"No, your fine." Alex said, turning slightly back towards him. He could see something change across her face, as if she had wrestled back control from something hidden behind her eyes. Her posture changed too. From curled protectively inward, to broad shouldered and confident, though he could see her hands just barley shaking from the tension she was holding.

'Of course!' He suddenly realized 'that's why she appeared so calm when he first met her, victims of abuse often learned to control or hide their emotional response when confronted with a traumatizing or overwhelming situation.'

"I mean, your not wrong." she continued, "I grew up on a ranch in Texas with an asshole of a father. He always wanted a son, to carry on his legacy or some shit, but instead he got me. He used to come home drunk and put a belt, a wrench, and a stick on the kitchen table and tell me to choose. He said that was how he would 'make me a man.'"

"Based on physics and material structure, I would have to choose the belt." Reid interjected.

"I always chose the wrench." Alex shrugged

"Why?"

"Because fuck him. He already controlled everything else about my life, and I'd be damned if I was going to give him an ounce of satisfaction if I could help it. Anyways, I left home as soon as I turned 17 and hitch-hiked north, working odd jobs here and there. Haven't seen him since."

"I'm sorry." Reid said, looking at the ground.

"Hey man, it's alright. It's over and done with anyways...So what about you? What's your poison?" she said, attempting to change the subject.

"Hu?" Reid asked, confused.

"You didn't totally freak out when I took off your blindfold, so I'm guessing you've seen some shit, and don't take this the wrong way, but you don't exactly seem like the type to talk about you problems. So what is it? Gambling? Drugs? Sex?"

"Dilaudid. But I've been clean for four years."

"Damn," Alex marveled, "You must have a pretty great support system."

"I mean, yea. They are like my family." Reid smiled

"And?" Alex pressed with a grin, "Come on, I told you about myself and my shitty family, now you tell me about yours."

"Well," Reid started, "I guess I could always start with Morgan..."


	3. Chapter 3

"I've been going over what Agent Swann's team has learned so far." Hotch explained as Morgan entered the squad room, glancing at the cork board full of young faces and brutal scars. "Every couple of months, they take a new set of victims, always a young man and woman, and always either from or near a college campus. So far the unsubs don't seem to show a racial preference and most of the victims either did not know one another or knew one another only casually, so we believe that they are crimes of convenience rather than targeted attacks."

"That tracks with what I've seen on the recordings." Morgan interjected, "They leave the victims alone together for 24 hours and then use the resulting bond to control them. Hang on." He said, answering his phone, "Hey baby girl, you're on speaker phone."

"So I've been trying to track the feed, but it's been routed through like seventy proxy servers, and you know how those are my kryptonite, but I'm going to keep digging." She said, not sounding quite like her usual chipper self. No matter how hard she tried to stay focused, Garcia found herself sneaking glances at the gray monitor in the corner showing Reid's feed. But something to her right dinged and she was brought back. "Hold up, facial recognition just came back on the second victim, her name is Alexandra Davis, a 22 year old Texas native. Born to a Linda-Ann Davis and a John Davis, it looks like mom died from cancer when she was six. Oof, after that, child protective services was called several times for reports of abuse, but nothing was ever done, she left home at seventeen, dropped off the map for a few months, and then reappeared in Washington D.C. as a student at UDC. Works two jobs, as a high school tutor and a waitress at a local mom and pop shop."

"Garcia, do we have any information on the father?" Hotch asked.

"Let me check...Born and raised in Austin Texas, oh...looks like he was killed in a drunk driving accident nine months ago."

"Alright, thanks Garcia." Hotch said, hanging up. "We need to coordinate with JJ and get ahead of the press. There's no telling what the unsubs will do if they find out Reid is an agent."

"Hotch, we have a problem." JJ said, barging into the room. She grabbed the remote and turned up the TV in the corner. A young blond news woman was reading out the headlines.

"In further news, two more young adults have been taken in Washington D.C., an as of yet unidentified female UDC student and guest lecturer and FBI agent Dr. Spencer Reid."

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ka-Chunk!  
Alex started awake. The sun was streaming in through the single small barred window at just the right angle to illuminate the room in a way that seemed inconsiderate given the situation. She sat up and ran her hands through her hair, causing the bandage Reid had wrapped around her upper arm the night before to tug painfully against her cut. Reid was still asleep on the other cot, his brown hair falling over his eyes as the sunlight shimmered through, casting an array of dancing shadows on his face. His slender frame rose and fell slowly, almost peacefully, with every breath.

Ka-Chunck!

There it was again! It sounded vaguely like a metal door being opened and then slammed shut. 

"Spencer," Alex whispered, gently shaking his shoulder, "Come on, wake up."

"Hm?" he groaned, bleary eyed.

"I think someone is coming."

Ka-Chunk!

The sound was defiantly drawing closer. 

Ka-Chunk!

It sounded like it could be right outside their door. Suddenly, a small panel in the door was slammed open with a horrendous creak and something silver clattered to the floor. Reid and Alex both jumped, but neither moved forward. The barrel of a pistol could just be seen protruding from the now open slot. 

"Cuff him!" a gruff voice barked.

"What?" Alex half whispered, still startled from the sudden noise.

"I said cuff him, or I'll shoot you both!" The voice repeated. 

"It's ok." Reid mouthed, nodding at Alex. She took a deep shaky breath a crept forward, making sure to keep her hands in view. Didn't want him getting trigger happy after all. Reaching the door, she knelt down to pick up the silver handcuffs off the floor. Through the door, she could just barely make out the silhouette of a man, but not much else.

Having retrieved the cuffs, Alex took Reid's right hand in hers and closed the cold metal around it. Every click of the locking mechanism sounded as deafening as her heart beat roaring in her ears, and her hands were shaking more than she would have liked. She reached down to cuff his other wrist in front of him, but was interrupted.

"No!" The voice commanded, "Behind him."

Obediently, Alex moved, gently pulling Reid's arms behind him.

"I'm so sorry Spence." She whispered, closing the second cuff.

"Not your fault." Reid replied, shaking his head.

"On your knees, both of you!" The voice ordered, "Hands on your head."

They complied, and the door creaked open, revealing three masked men, all heavily armed. One moved directly to Reid, pulling him roughly to his feet, while another yanked Alex's arms behind her back, cuffing her.

"Move." The third hissed from the door, gesturing with his gun. Alex and Reid were marched down a seemingly endless hallway, lined on each side with doors leading into small rooms much like the one they had just left.

'What is this place?' Alex wondered, 'Perhaps some sort of abandoned prison or mental hospital?'

They were lead to the end of the hallway, which then turned right into a larger room filled with discarded furniture. In the center, a space had been cleared and a camera was set up on a tripod. Alex was forced into a wooden chair at the edge of the clearing while Reid was made to sit directly in front of the camera. One of the men tied a strap around Alex's torso, securing her to the chair, while another held Reid.

The remaining man moved behind the camera.

3, 

he signaled

2,

1,

"Laddies and gentlemen!" The man crowed, moving in front of the camera, "Tonight we have a very special guest watching our live stream, say hello to the FBI! What do you say we put on a good show for them?" he leered at Reid 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter. I wanted to make sure I got an update out before Christmas.  
> What do y'all think, should Reid and Alex be found sooner, and I can spend more time focused on their recovery with the BAU team, or should I focus more on Reid and Alex's experience with the trafficking ring? Or both?   
> Let me know in the comments below!

"If you fucking touch him, I swear to god I'll kill you!" Alex threatened from the chair where she was restrained.

"Shut up!" One of the men growled, moving behind her and forcing a knotted cloth between her teeth, effectively gagging her. 

"Look, you don't have to do this" Reid said as two of the masked men uncuffed him, retying his wrists and torso to the arms and back of the metal chair. "Just let me talk to my team. They will back down if I tell them to."

"You really believe that?" one of the men laughed, unrolling some kind of leather tool kit on a nearby table.

Reid pulled against his restraints, but found he could only move a few centimeters in any particular direction.

"Yes, if I tell them I'm ok and that everything is going to be alright."

"Well now's your chance," The man sneered, "they're watching right through that camera. Don't worry though," he said picking a knife from the toolkit, "I'm sure this will hurt them just as much as it will you."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hotch!" Garcia called out panicked as she ran through the squad room, "Has anyone seen Hotch?"

"Garcia, whats wrong?" JJ asked, running into the room, Morgan hot on her heels.

"They took Reid and then the feed just went black and, oh god, I just know something awful has happened!"

"I'll call Hotch." JJ said as Morgan and Garcia ran back to her office.

Within a few moments they were all gathered anxiously around Garcia's wall of monitors, the center one showing their missing team member.

*  
'...Don't worry though, I'm sure this will hurt them just as much as it will you.'

A man dressed in all black with a black ski mask walked into view of the camera, a serrated hunting knife held in his hand.

"No, no!" Reid begged, struggling against his restraints, "Please don't do this!"

*

"Garcia, can we get a trace on the source of the feed?" Hotch asked.

"I...I can't seem to make it through the sea of proxy servers." Garcia shakily replied, "They've made me practically useless! If I can't do this then we can't find Reid and then..."

"Hey," JJ interrupted, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, "It's gonna be ok."

"I know, I know, I just..."

*

Reid whimpered as the man lashed out with his free hand, striking Reid in the face, then slashing at his upper arm, the jagged blade of the knife tearing rather than slicing at his skin.

"MMMPH!" Alex protested from somewhere off-screen.

"You see that?" The masked man jeered at the camera before turning back to Reid and making a matching cut right below the first, and then another, and another "You see this? You can't stop this!"

*

Morgan's hands were shaking and his heart felt like it was physically breaking in his chest. Everything in him wanted to beat the shit out of the man torturing Reid, then just scoop up his kid up and carry him home. How were the others so calm? Well, except Garcia, but she had always been the most kind-hearted of the team.

*

"If you even try to come after us, his blood," the man said, holding the dripping knife in front of the camera, "is on your hands. If you try to track us, if you try to raid one of our locations, or try to arrest one of our operatives, he" the man threatened, holding the bloody knife against Reid's neck, "is dead. Understand? You do anything other than just watch, and he is dead! So back the fuck off!"

*

"I...I can't do this!" Garcia gasped, fleeing from the room, tears in her eyes.

"Morgan?" Hotch asked, nodding after Garcia.

"On it." He replied, going after her. He hated to leave. It felt as if he was somehow abandoning Reid, but he knew that right now Garcia needed him more than ever, and if the team didn't have her, there was no way they were going to find Reid.

"So what now?" JJ asked.

"I don't know." Hotch solemnly replied, eyes transfixed on the last image still lingering on the screen. Reid, their kid, broken and bloodied.


End file.
